GM Magnus Carlsen may have been the favorite before the games started, but GM Oleksandr Bortnyk convincingly won his fifth Freestyle Friday tournament 9.5/11, a full point ahead of the former world champion and GM Dmitry Andreikin. With 83 participants, the event was very competitive, and first place was not decided until the final round.
Perhaps the most relevant game for the final standings came early in the event. In round four Carlsen and Bortnyk played a wild game.
After defeating Carlsen, Bortnyk drew the young FM Mathias Andre Casalaspro in round five. That result allowed Andreikin to move into the lead as the only perfect score. He maintained his perfect score by defeating Bortnyk in round six, when the latter missed his one chance to turn the game around.
Andreikin’s perfect tournament fell apart in round seven, when he had to defend a worse ending against Carlsen. That’s been one of the hardest tasks in chess for nearly two decades now, and Carlsen won a clean game.
After eight rounds there was a pack of leaders—Carlsen, Bortnyk, Andreikin, IM Rudik Makarian, and IM Khuong Duy Dau, each with 6.5/8. Bortnyk took care of the IMs in each of the next two rounds while both Carlsen and Andreikin dropped a game to lower-rated opponents. This meant that Bortnyk just needed a draw in the last round to win the event. He did better and won an attacking miniature against CM Georgijs Germanovs to finish a point ahead of the rest of the field. Germanovs had a spectacular event as well, finishing fourth and scoring a win against Carlsen.
November 7 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 20 )
Prizes: Bortnyk $400, Carlsen $250, Andreikin $150, Germanovs $100, IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham
$100.
Freestyle Friday is Chess.com’s weekly tournament dedicated to Freestyle Chess for titled players. The tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.
